So, playing for a prize is the wrong reason to play. Okay, we should linch the top four US Nationals players for playing armies that are not fun. :p

You're missing my point. ;) The object of ANY game, ultimately, should be to have
fun. Lingster was complaining about his players losing interest in the game
because "90% of the prizes are the same as the last two months."

Instead of being happy that everyone has a shot to score some of the better
pieces in this set, it sounds to me as if the players in question are unhappy
because they can't hawk their prizes on Ebay and make a killing. Therefore,
they're playing the game for the wrong reasons. If that's the case, and they're
no longer enjoying the game, they should quit playing.

As long as everyone involved is having fun in the process, I have no problem
with folks playing for prizes. Hell, I'm just as competitive as the next guy.
That said, I also put thigs in the proper perspective.

As for the guys who play in Nationals and, ultimately, Worlds, they're playing for
much more than prizes. They're playing for the thrill of competition against other
top players as well as prestige. :)

I'm getting sorta sick of seeing RotS prizes all the time. I'll still play, but if I win it's just trade-bait. Perhaps a good opportunity for such fun armies as Behemoth IIs with Hauberk escorts forming the bulk of the force or something.

Please, WK, give us another shot at Gunslingers or something!

Look at it this way. As uber as the KOTS mechs are, you can pretty much name
your price for one of them. Even people who, ordinarily, don't play Republic units
want them. ;)

Also, you've hit on a good point. Maybe WK is doing it to promote more of a fun
atmosphere and less of a cut-throat one. :)

I only play at one venue and not every week, so I do not mind too many duplicates. I just do not like cards for sealed events.

the repeats for the third month is a disappointment but not a serious one as most of those peices are still worth having. Who knows, I might lose a lot between then an now.

With an attitude like that, as the BM, I'm not surprised your MW Tourney scene is failing.

Seriously, Battlemasters are the most visible representatives of the WizKids tournament scene to players. If the BM has an attitude that the prizes aren't good, or the game is deteriorating, or other such negative views, it tends to get picked up by the players, and pretty soon, the players decide to not play Mechwarrior anymore. When the BM is enthusiastic, and tries to help players play, and doesn't talk about how bad they think WizKids is, the tournament scene tends to improve (not always, just usually). I've seen this both on the boards and in my area. The BMs on the board that talk about how MW is dying, and how the tournament scene has really died off are also the ones that tend to talk the most about how they think the game is going in the wrong direction, how they think the prize support is bad, etc, etc. The BMs that talk about how they've seen an upswing in tournament attendance also tend to be the ones that have more positive opinions on the game. Funny how that works.

In my area, the main Battlemasters for a while had started talking about how they felt the game was going downhill for a while. Tournament attendance dropped. Those guys are no longer Battlemasters. The last BM in the area left is much more enthusiastic about the game, and about running games. Tournament attendance for his tournaments has been going up, and just yesterday he said that his venue said that profits for Mechwarrior were doing so well, he never had to worry about being able to run Mechwarrior events there again, _ever_.

People trust word of mouth far more than anything else, and they trust word of mouth from people they met far more than from on-line. So if the main person running games is badmouthing the game or the prize support, yeah, it isn't terribly surprising that tournament attendance would drop.

I've always been optomistic about the game. I stick with it each week. But it's hard when new players don't come along.

I don't usually bad-mouth the prize support. But when I saw this I had to say something. the players that do play at my venue are a solid group of 4. NO one new wants to play. the 4 that do play are the ones that complain about the game's support. They still play, but they find it discouraging to see the same stuff over and over.

No one complained as much as they do now. back when the prize support was 90% different for each month, it was better. I've been with the game for over 2 years. Attendence was the highest 2 years ago. Even one of the top 10 MW players has stopped playing in this area. Evan just gave up...

two new young fellas joined our group in the last month, attendance ranges
from 4-12 with around 8 being normal.

That sealed event probably won't be with annihilation boosters unfortunately,
they had a sealed just before FiP came out and the BM were forced to schedule
it early in the month, this will probably be the same (and therefore poorly
attended).

S